The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It was first introduced to the public in 1982 in Japan, and 1983 in the USA. By 1985 CD sales started to grow rapidly, and in 1988 CD sales surpassed vinyl LP; by 1989 they outsold cassette tapes, thus becomming the most popular audio format in the world. Popularity kept growing until they peaked in 2002.

It was between 2001 and 2003 when Interpunk approached many Punk Rock & Metal record labels about them providing "CD Samplers" with 2 to 30 songs each covering a good representation of bands on their record label to be given to Interpunk to give out to our Customers for FREE. In return we asked the recepients to go to our website to answer a survey about the sampler that they received. The results were shared with the record Label who provided each sampler and inturn invaluable information was able to be transferred directly from fans and non-fans to Label Management to give them some great insight.

Interpunk distributed 250,000 Free CD samplers during that time, comprised of 165 different samplers. Were you a customer back then? How many different CD samplers did you get?

Well get this... We kept 3 to 5 copies of many of the CD samplers back then and stored them away for the past 20 years. Last week I dug out the box and shown here is everything we saved. They aren't free this time around, but for just $10 you have a piece of history and nalstalgia.